EUROPE & DC '23 • Day 18: Vienna, Austria

Bob Aron
Sep 16, 2023
3 min read

Updated: Sep 25, 2023

MORE CATHEDRALS • BELVEDERE

We have crossed the half way point in this adventure: City # 5 out 9. And while neither of us know any German, at least some words can make sense, unlike Czech. However, after reading some warnings about tourists not understanding the Metro and getting hefty citations for not properly using the multi day cards, we did struggle at first to get moving on the metro. But that's a story for after lunch.

I know we’re in Vienna and Mozart and Beethoven houses are a thing, but you can only do so much in 2 days and half the fun is sitting around and having beer, or drinking coffee with a pastry. So we will go to the the Musikveren on Monday but today we went to see the St Stephen cathedral. It's yet another beautiful gothic cathedral. It's a short walk from our hotel which is nice, since the weather still remains unusually warm. Really glad I brought 2 pairs of short pants on this trip as they are getting a lot of use. As we approached, the cathedral bells were ringing......and ringing.....and ringing. Not sure if they ran so long because it's Sunday, or if it' everyday at 10am. Nevertheless, a beautiful sound to enjoy in the square. First choice of the day; Climb 343 steps up the south tower? Or the elevator in the north tower. I think we need the exercise so the steps it is. Great views as expected, but truly, the cityscape of Vienna doesn't compare to Prague. When we climbed back down the tower and visited inside, mass was being held. It was cool to hear the music in such a large acoustic space We also got a little of that in the St Peter’s Church with the choir singing during mass.

I will say that even though I am not religious, I still enjoy visiting these churches. They were sbuilt by amazing architects and skilled artisans and it boggles the mind that these could have been built so long ago with such skill and be standing centuries later.

BELVEDERE PALACE - MUSEUM

OK, admittedly it took us at least 15 minutes to figure out how to buy a 24 hour metro pass. We probably didn't really even need it for today's trip to the museum at Belvedere Palace, but we really don't want to walk 3 miles each way in the city for the Schonbrunn Palace tomorrow. It's Sunday, so the ticket office was closed, and so no humans to help us figure out the ticket. As we pondered the ticket machine, another American couple was having the exact same conundrum, and were headed to the same place. Suffice to say we made it there just fine and can now instruct anyone how to use the metro!

I'm pretty tired of historical stuff by now, so we are only going into the art galleries at the Belvedere Palace. They have a large collection of work by Gustav Klimt, including his famous painting, The Kiss. Sorry, no photo taken, there were so many people I didn't want to wait for a good shot. I really should have taken a photo of the people taking photos though, like I did at the Louvre for the Mona Lisa years ago. I enjoy the work from mid 1800s to present for its variety, colors, etc, especially when it conveys something concrete and literal without attempting to capture a snapshot of time like a photograph. Abstract in presentation, but not in subject. If you start taking about a urinal on the wall as art, we’ll have to take this discussion offline and argue about it in a bar. No, as far as the older stuff goes, I never get tired of walking through a gallery of baroque paintings, and always come away with the same feeling that people haven’t changed much in 500 years. The facial expressions in those baroque works tell the same human stories we see today.